Attitude Reconstruction is based on the fact that all of our problems, our bad habits and attitudes, stem back to unexpressed emotions – that is sadness, anger, and fear. To feel more of our other three emotions – joy, love, and peace — we need to acknowledge and express our sadness, anger, and fear naturally, physically, and constructively.

It’s important to realize that our emotions are just pure energy. Look at the word “emotion.” It’s made up of E + motion. Energy in motion. If we move the energy out of our bodies, it passes and calmness and clarity is restored.

Are you afraid of speaking in public, not having enough money to pay the rent, or seemingly almost everything? Do you often feel anxious, worried, or overwhelmed? Does your mind catapult backwards, forward, or out into the wild blue yonder, but never resides in the present? These are symptoms of living with unexpressed fear, and fear severely diminishes your ability to feel peace and enjoy the present moment.

Fear is the natural reaction to threats to our survival, such as natural disasters, accidents, and things we haven’t done before. However, when we don’t handle fear physically, our minds become the enemy, jumping into the future, losing perspective and leaving us confused and scattered.

Conquer Fear by Shivering

Shaking and shivering is the most effective and natural method because fear is just physical energy in the body. Act like a scared dog at the veterinarian when you feel the bodily sensations of fear – heart racing, hands freezing, solar-plexus tightening. It can feel silly at first, but if you allow your body to shiver, quiver, shudder, tremble, or quake – what it wants to naturally do – you’ll restore calm and your attention will come back to the present moment. Ham it up. Persist until you feel tension drain out of your body. It just takes a minute or two.

Don’t give in to agitated thoughts of “always,” “never,” overgeneralizations, and doom and gloom about the future. Use your mind to keep peace nearby and fear at bay and continually repeat:

It’s okay. I am just feeling fear. I just need to shiver.

This feeling is temporary. This will pass.

Everything is all right.

I’ll handle the future in the future.

I will deal with one thing at a time.

If you express the fear energy and replace your old thoughts with what is true, you’ll feel calmer and be able to determine what’s best to say or do to handle what beforehand seemed scary. Then you can break that goal into little, doable steps, and just do it, one step at a time.

When facing fear head on, you’ll be entertained and inspired by the moment. Paralysis will be replaced with forward movement; confusion with confidence. You’ll live in each moment and stay specific, hold on to what you know is true for you, surrender to what is, enjoy it, and participate in life more fully. You’ll feel more peace.

Attitude Reconstruction is based on the fact that all of our problems, our bad habits and attitudes, stem back to unexpressed emotions – that is sadness, anger, and fear. To feel more of our other three emotions – joy, love, and peace — we need to acknowledge and express our sadness, anger, and fear naturally, physically, and constructively.

It’s important to realize that our emotions are just pure energy. Look at the word “emotion.” It’s made up of E + motion. Energy in motion. If we move the energy out of our bodies, it passes and calmness and clarity is restored.

Anger is the body’s natural reaction to injustices and violations. A violation could be feeling betrayed or slandered. It could be your house being robbed or someone taking credit for your project. An injustice could be witnessing discrimination, hearing about corruption, or being called out at home plate when you were safe. When we experience injustices and violations, we naturally feel angry. Our temperatures rise and we want to strike out and do some damage.

We also perpetuate our own anger by focusing on other people and situations, thinking the world and those in it “should” be different than they are, negatively judging what we don’t accept, and believing everyone should conform to our wishes because we know best. Wanting to strike out, saying or doing mean things, or viewing other people, things, and situations as enemies won’t bring you love. In fact, your anger-based actions can land you in jail or locked up in an emotional prison of feeling separate and isolated.

Dissolve anger by pounding, stomping, or yelling

Deep breathing or thinking your way thru flashes of anger is not realistic. Think about what children do when they feel anger. They have a temper tantrum and then it’s over and they resume their activities. We must deal with that hot, urge to lash out and inflict damage in a constructive way and express it safely, physically and naturally.

Express anger energy physically without damaging a person or anything of value. Find a safe place to push against a wall, stomp around the room, or pound the heck out of old phone books. Do it hard, fast, and with abandon. While expressing the anger don’t say negative things and swear. Just make sounds and move the physical energy out of your body.

Interrupt destructive thinking about how people and things “should” be different and accept what is. Repeat 100,000 times or until you truly get it, “People and things are the way they are, not the way I want them to be.”

When you get rid of anger’s emotional energy, you get back to yourself, your heart. You’ll feel more loving and assert yourself with honesty, kindness, and empathy. Barriers you’ve built with others will come crashing down and your connections will be real and healthy.

Each time you own and deal with your anger physically and constructively and accept what is, you create love. It’s hard at first. We’ve got our pride. Our ego is strong and we feel so justified. But it works. It’s effective. Natural. Fast.

Loss of a loved one can be a triple whammy. There’s the excruciating void from the loss itself, but our ability to feel open, safe, and vulnerable also vanishes. We feel forever shattered, and the world seems cruel. We lose interest in everything or the opposite, carry on as if nothing significant happened.

Here are three suggestions to help someone move through a loss, according to Attitude Reconstruction:

You need to listen and repeatedly, lovingly encourage them to talk about what they miss and what they appreciated most about the person. Even if they say “no thanks” keep softly offering. In order to heal, they need to talk.

Your job is just to provide a safe place — not give your “wisdom” or personal experiences. As the silent witness, respectfully keep extending your invitation. It often takes repeated respectful invitations. Be sure to genuinely listen and thank them for sharing.

Freedom comes from facing their loss and allowing themselves to feel their emotions – sadness, anger, and fear. At a neutral time, talk with them about this fact: emotions are just pure energy in the body.

Crying is healing because it’s the body’s natural reaction to hurts and losses. They can cry alone, with you, in therapy, or with a friend. Encourage them to say the “dreaded” G word — good-bye — to fully acknowledge the ending. This can be incredibly hard and usually brings up more sadness, but they must say “I miss you. I love you. Good-bye.”

If they feel more anxious that awful things will happen in the future, show them how to shake and shiver fear out of their bodies while saying, “Something greater than me is in charge. This is not in my control. Be here now.“

Anger can also be lurking because of how unfair this tragedy seems. Encourage them to find a constructive way to pound, push, shout, or stomp out the anger energy – hard, fast, and with abandon — where no one or nothing of value is destroyed. While moving the anger energy, they need to remind themselves that, “They are gone. That’s the way it is.”

Whenever you feel they are sinking, spacing, and just going through the motions of living, encourage them to talk about the person some more and maybe take a few minutes to cry and say good-bye again.

It takes time to heal when we lose something or someone dear. By talking and emoting, they’ll find their energy gradually return. Gently but persistently don’t allow them to tell you that they are okay, when you know in your heart they aren’t.

Did your parents have good communication skills? When I ask people this question, very few say yes. And this is the reason why we don’t communicate very well – we were never taught how, not from our parents, our schools, our peers, or the media.

It seems like it should be so easy. We all want to share ourselves with others. But often our best intentions take a turn for the worse whenever emotions enter the picture. We say one thing and end up communicating another. Differences get magnified. Words get twisted. Good intentions are misinterpreted. Talking escalates into arguing and suddenly we want to attack or flee. This can all result in low self-esteem and confidence. No matter our strategy and how we’ve learned to cope, the result of poor communication is a loss of connection and openness.

According to Attitude Reconstruction, all good communication boils down to following four simple rules. With them, anyone can communicate about any topic effectively and lovingly. There are also four main violations that create the misunderstandings and ensuing hurt, alienation, and confusion that we experience when communicating with others.

The first rule is “talk about yourself.” This is our true domain — sharing what we feel, think, want, and need. Offering personal information brings closeness, as we reveal what’s true for us. The First Violation is to tell other people about themselves (without permission). This includes blame, criticism, sarcasm, teasing, attacking, and finger-pointing. These tactics only create feelings of separation, alienation, and defensiveness. An example of these two styles are “You’re monopolizing the conversation.” vs “I have something I want to say.”

The Second rule is to stay specific. That’s what we do with music, architecture, engineering, cooking, math, physics, and computers; and what we must do when communicating. When we stay concrete others can understand what we’re saying – the topic, the request, the reasons. It brings peace. The Second Violation is over-generalizing. This can take the form of sweeping conclusions, abstractions, and labels, and using words like “always” and “never,” or bringing in other topics only barely related to the subject at hand. This is confusing and it fuels fear. An illustration is: “We always do what you want to do” vs “I don’t want to spend the weekend with your parents.”

The third rule is kindness. Compassion fosters love. It can take the form of offering appreciations, giving praise, focusing on the positive, and sharing what you are grateful for. The Third Violation is being unkind. Focusing on what’s not working, that is, on what we don’t like, throws a blanket on furthering a conversation and produces anger and feelings of separation in the recipient. An example is “I really appreciated when you help with the dishes… laundry, kids, etc.” vs “I have to do everything because you never help around the house.”

The fourth rule is simply to listen. That means seeking to truly understand what someone is saying, and encouraging them to talk. This brings closeness. Listening is a practice. The Fourth Violation is not listening. We know how that feels. Automatic interruptions, debates, and wise-cracks don’t truly acknowledge the speaker but instead further our own agenda.

The goal of good communication is understanding and feeling more love, so if we keep that in mind, we’ll be inspired to learn to speak and listen well. Luckily it’s not that hard. It just takes practice as we learn how to stop making the four communication violations and instead follow four simple rules.

The Four Rules of Good Communication are so powerful. They work in the bedroom or boardroom, with children and neighbors, with co-workers and strangers. Here’s the wonderful part: each time we stop ourselves from our old ways and abide by the four rules we feel more powerful, confident, and true to ourselves. Others will understand us better and we can also understand them. All it takes is a little practice, practice, practice and everyone can learn to have consistently effective communication skills.

Instead of automatically digging your heels in and thinking: I don’t want to … the outside world is making me do this,” pause. This kind of thinking is an indicator of unexpressed anger, of not accepting what is, of knowing you don’t want to but feeling you “should”. Like a child having a tantrum because he doesn’t want to go to bed, you feel justified in stubbornly resisting. However, there is a price to pay, both within yourself, and for others.

To spare yourself and your world from missing out on feeling love, switch your thinking and take personal responsibility. The truth is “I am responsible for what I think, feel, say, and do.”

When it seems as though others are telling you what to do and you feel resistance brewing, step out of your rut and ask yourself: What’s the specific event or task? What do I know in my heart of hearts is best, is the high road, or will keep me in my personal integrity?

You intuitively know what’s right. It’s an inner feeling. So listen and obey that rather than your knee-jerk resistance. You’ll become a different, lighter, freer person. You’ll how to treat your customer so they will shop with you again. You know that taking out the trash is the least you could do to help around the kitchen. You know when to call your aging parent. You know when it’s time to give an employee a raise.

Listen within and obey. You’ll feel less anger, more love, and more in the flow. You’ll get out of that selfish “me me me” mentality and experience the joy of staying true to yourself. Those around you will thank you too.

Both men and women have to speak up in order to take charge of their lives and cultivate meaningful relationships!

We don’t speak up for the same general reasons, which include:

I don’t want to rock the boat — I want to keep the status quo

I don’t want others to have any emotions – be upset, scared, hurt, mad

I don’t want to hear what they have to say because I’m angry and when I’m angry, I’m convinced that my way is clearly the correct way

I want to avoid conflict at all cost

We pay a high price by stuffing it — by going silent, stonewalling, and withdrawing. Learn how you can transform your life & relationships.

Where’s my joy? I’ve just not honored myself – unhappy.

Where’s my love? Instead of feeling connected and being part of the collective energy flow, I’m a million miles away – isolated.

Where’s my peace? This moment doesn’t feel safe.

During a session recently, a husband was sitting on the couch with his wife. He was trying to share his health concerns with her. At his first pause, she started giving him nutritional recommendations.

I leaned forward and said to him: “And when she’s giving you her opinion and that’s the last thing in the world you want, with the sweetest most loving voice you can muster, say ‘Honey, I just want to be listened to for a few minutes right now.”

The key is to say it sweetly, lightly and repeatedly until she stops and refocuses on what you were saying.

And what did the guy on the couch say after all that? “That would be new for me!”

At an early age he’d learned to cope by going into his “serious brooding” mode and distancing himself. She hated it when he did that.

What we all really want in our social relationships especially with family members, is to feel good about ourselves, to feel connected/share/feel part of a team, and know we’re safe in our own little tribe. (Attitude Reconstruction contends that these three goals are the three Ultimate Attitudes associated with the three emotions of joy, love, and peace.)

When the other person has coaxed you to talk or you finally speak up about something you know you’ve been avoiding, more joy, love, and peace awaits just by lightly repeating the words…

“I just want to be listened to for a few minutes right now.”

Here are three important points:

This doesn’t mean you get to hold onto the microphone and talk for as long as you want. It’s got to be shared fifty-fifty.

Talk about yourself and what’s going on for you. This isn’t “listen to me while I tell you about you.” For both or all people involved, the focus is you sharing about yourself. That’s how feelings of closeness arise.

When you’ve finished what you want to say, you can solicit other’s impressions, feelings, suggestions, etc. IF you want them.

We all just want to be understood, aka listened to – to be seen for “us” as a worthy being. As scary as it can seem at first, I guarantee that speaking up will bring copious rewards and breakthrough moments. You will be more authentic and your relationship will prosper.

Being too self-critical is epidemic in our society. It’s almost a national pastime to beat ourselves up over real and imagined imperfections. We became unwitting devotees watching our parents and teachers direct their anger towards us with negative judgments and demeaning labels instead of channeling emotions in appropriate ways. Being receptive little students, we pledged allegiance to those unkind messages and internalized commitments to keep them alive. Today we know the words by heart and speak them inside without even thinking.

For many of us, the expression “you are your own worst enemy” holds a lot of truth. We’re torn between identifying with our “true self,” which is self-accepting, goal-directed, and life-affirming or the “self-critical self,” which mercilessly beats us up and thwarts our efforts to reach our goals.

Whenever we criticize ourselves, we compound the issue. We turn one problem into two — there’s the social blunder, poor financial decision, or disapproving glance in the mirror — and the demeaning self-loathing that follows.

We can systematically start to feel more self-love by recognizing when our critical inner messages start to play and relentlessly wage war.

Are you more than ready to silence the tyrant? Then try these four effective strategies to stop being self-critical when you make a mistake so you can show yourself more love:

Write down the most common destructive things you say to yourself, such as “I’m so stupid.” “I blew it again.” “ I’m such a bad person. I’m unlovable.”

Determine what contradicts your old messages and write them down on a card or paper. Change the funky messages to something more positive and objectively true, such as “I’m doing the best I can. / I did the best I could.” I’m fine and I’m doing fine.” Or “Life is for learning. We all make mistakes.” Or “If I knew then what I know now, I would have done things differently.” Put your truths on a 3×5 card and carry them in your pocket, day-timer, or taped to your computer or dashboard of your car.

Relentlessly repeat your new thoughts, especially when you’re judging yourself poorly or when you’re crying and feeling down. Repeat them ten, twenty, thirty times! It doesn’t matter if you believe it or not. Just repeat them. Interrupt all the “yes, buts” and other discounting thoughts that surface and continue to repeat your new truths.

Shower yourself with kindness in the form of self-appreciations. Compliment your own abilities, characteristics, qualities, and efforts. It’s not boasting or bragging. It’s looking on the bright side.

Write down three self-appreciations each day. At the end of each week read your list out loud with conviction and enthusiasm. Adding a smile, or even half a smile while repeating your list, will give it a boost.

If this feels totally weird and you can’t come up with a single self-appreciation, start with something small. Name a specific positive trait, talent, or quality and look at yourself from this new perspective. Try something like:

I‘m intelligent.

I’m responsible.

I take good care of my parents.

I like to help others.

Beating yourself up for not living up to impossible standards is a dead-end road that leads to Point Misery. See how wonderful you feel when you relentlessly focus on the good. Emphasizing your positive qualities and contradicting that internal critic will definitely improve your attitude about yourself. Starting today, turn your self-criticism into self-appreciation. You’ll feel the difference immediately and hear a new pledge of allegiance to the united states of Joy, Love, and Peace!

We all know some well intending (for the most part) souls who are happy to give us directives in everything from how to wear our hair to why we need to get a ‘real’ job to why we’re the reason our kid is failing algebra. Mom might tell you to ditch the boyfriend or stand up to the boss. Instead of biting your tongue or lashing out in frustration, it’s time to adopt a strategy to deal with all the unsolicited advice you’re getting in your life.

Their well-meaning 2-cents-worth is what I call, “you-ing.” They are telling you about you without your permission. That’s the opposite of the first Attitude Reconstruction communication rule, which is “talk about yourself” — stick to your “I.” You-ing naturally elicits anger. They are out of their own back yard. If you aren’t ready for or don’t want feedback, it’s counter productive.

According to Attitude Reconstruction, when you’re drowning in the sea of uninvited advice from others, remember these six tips:

Unsolicited advice and opinions mean that someone believes they are entitled to tell you about yourself without gaining permission. The reality is that we are each responsible for ourselves. That’s quite enough of a task in itself.

When unsolicited advice comes at you, don’t argue with it. Remember that you are just the target of their misplaced anger, that it’s not personal, and that you are fine just the way you are. Blasting them back won’t help. Don’t look for the grain of truth in what’s being said. Don’t be overly polite and let others go on and on just to hear themselves talk. Instead, be the matador, put out your cape, step aside, and let the “bull” go flying by.

Then lovingly but firmly speak up about what is true for you. Tell them it’s not helpful to you to receive unsolicited advice. Maybe mention that support and appreciation work much better for you. Matador their retort to you speaking up. Don’t get sucked into their rationalizations about how they are just trying to help. Acknowledge their good intentions and be a broken record, such as “I‘m getting angry right now because I’m not wanting any advice right now.”

If they don’t hear and acknowledge what you’ve said — what is true for you right now – lovingly say it again, as many times as you need to, until they stop. Repeat each time they do it again. “I know you’re concerned about me, but I’m really not looking for input right now. When I need it, I’ll let you know.”

And finally, appreciate them at times when they are not giving advice. Deep down, we all relish compliments, even though we may resist at the time.

Learning to tap in and listen to your own soul’s advice is always the biggest source of wisdom. But when others are bent on telling you the way your life needs to be, remember to honor yourself, to speak your truth and to say, ‘no thank you.’

Summer is the time when days are long and routines are more flexible. Wouldn’t you like to make this summer full of renewal, rejuvenation, and transformation? It’s attainable with just a little bit of forethought and planning, Embrace the idea, and you’ll have something to show for the summer – a change you can look back on and feel genuinely good about.

To make this shift requires putting yourself first. Realize you are making the choice to do something important for you. You can do this by taking a pause and asking yourself, “What would make me feel proud at the end of the summer?” You know!

Make a concrete plan to commit time to actualizing your goal. What you select needs to be reasonable and doable. Write it down. Get specific about logistics – exactly who, what, when, and where? Map out the time on your schedule.

Here are five possibilities:

Acquire a new interest or hobby. Perhaps you always wanted to learn to play the guitar or plant a garden. Find a good teacher and sign up for lessons or locate a helpful resource.

Travel to a desired location. Perhaps you’ve always dreamed of taking a cross-country trip or canoeing in Algonquin National Park.

Focus on personal growth to reconstruct an attitude. Maybe check out the Hollyhock Learning Centre schedule and attend a workshop on Cortes Island, BC.

Volunteer with a cause you admire. There are so many worthy organizations just waiting for you. Whether you’re drawn to helping children or the homeless, or are passionate about animals or the environment, the options are endless.

Tell someone, preferably someone who also would also like to make this his or her best summer yet. Make an agreement to check in periodically, not for a guilt trip, but as a cheerleader and coach, offering encouragement and support.

Keep your goal in mind, ignore the excuses, and just do it. You’ll be proud of what you’ve accomplished and pleased with the results.

By the way, I’ll be leading a workshop about Attitude Reconstruction at the Hollyhock Learning Centre on Cortes Island, B.C., August 14 to 19. Click here for details.

It always feels good to have a personal cheerleader so I suggest you find one! Seeking support from another person might take a little courage. Maybe you’ll feel vulnerable, embarrassed, or concerned about imposing. Do it anyway.

Generate a list of possible candidates and choose one. Write out your request first, then feel your fear and dare to ask. If someone declines, don’t take it personally. Just try someone else. Ideally, the person you select will be working on making personal changes too, so you can cheer each other on.

Make contact at the appointed time. Watch out for making excuses not to check in. If you resist, deal with your emotions—shiver, cry or pound, then make the call. You’re both responsible to initiate your check-in, so don’t wait for the other person.

Possible Check-In Format

1. One person talks. The other just pays attention and listens. Set a timer so that you stick to the agreed-upon time each person will have.

2. Switch roles after the timer goes off.

3. Confirm your next check-in time.

4. Exchange appreciations.

The support person’s not there to take charge and tell you what to do. If she has her own stake in your changing, she’ll lose the ability to encourage you when you don’t meet her expectations. You want your cheerleader primarily to listen, look for the positive, and, with your permission, kindly point out attitudes or actions that seem counterproductive. If they’re upbeat, empathetic, congratulatory, and reliable, you’ve found the right person.